Following the Wanderer
by stonegiant
Summary: For years the Society of immortals has kept track of the Vault descendants, this is the story of a ghoul master of espionage who has dedicated his life to observing the Lone Wanderer of Vault 101


Preface

I had been watching the lone wanderer for many years already at the time he wandered out of his vault in pursuit of his father. The father, James, had thought to give us the slip when he petitioned for, and gained admittance into the vault labeled 101. For 18 years I waited and watched the vault for any sign of activity from within, and very nearly on the anniversary of my assignment to the Lineage of the Vault Dweller, the last known descendant of whom was about to start his own journey, to find his father no less.

That day, I witnessed both James' hasty getaway, and his son's pursuit into the unknown. It was only right that my charge, The Lone Wanderer, be flash blinded by his first glimpse of the sun. Even though he had not yet realized it, he bore witness to the natural form of the process that led to his entombment in the vault.

The Lone Wanderer, whose name was Azoth, I learned at a later date, set out undaunted by the new and gigantic world he found in front of him. Just by looking upon his form you could tell that his S.P.E.C.I.A.L. was special in and of its own right. I made a note of it to closely watch him for signs of what his natural talents might be, as all of the Vault Dweller's descendants where in possession of meta-human abilities. I knew that the hazards of the wastes would do wonders for unlocking his underlying power and honing the genetic abilities of his blood line.

Azoth wandered into the nearby ruin of Springvale. Showing an obviously large level of perceptive talent he proceeded to raid mailboxes and broken wardrobes to loot their contents, finding things two hundred years of scavenging had not. Very soon he had an ammo pouch jingling with assorted calibers of weapons ammo. he had also found a rusty custom 10mm pistol that appeared to have once been the pride and joy of somebody's collection, now it was a lifeline to a new resident of this harsh new world.

Azoth proceeded to search every house in Springvale and loot all 'valuables' that could be found. On his fourth house looted in a lazy northerly drift he stumbled upon a junkie whom had taken up residence there. She was instantly upon him with her revolver pointed right at his chest. Without missing a beat, he put on his most disarming smile and she hesitated and lowered her gun before yelling at him "you can tell Colin that I won't be coming back there ever again, I'm making it on my own now". At this point Azoth is confused and says, "Lady I have no idea what you're talking about, if you would mind explaining I would be more than happy to help you." The junkie chick looks at Azoth quizzically and asks, "So you're not here to get those caps back for that slave driving bastard in megaton?" Azoth responds in the negative and again offers her help with her problem. "if you would just tell me what is the problem you're having I could help you get out of it." she stares at him for a moment as if her drugged mind needs extra time to churn the data it just received. One could nearly hear the cogs turning in her mind as he reached her decision, she would trust him to help.

She was about to say that she would love his help but was cut off before she could utter a sound by the point of Azoth's knife entering into the side of her neck just below the ear and cutting cleanly through her trachea. Her instinctual response to push his arm away merely caused the knife to be forced out the front of her throat and carve open her carotid and tear away the rest of her windpipe with hysterical force.

I hadn't even seen him move before her blood arched across the room, me, someone who was trained for decades to watch and record. Azoth has moved from a disarming posture to that of an assassin in such a small window that were it not for my hi-res recording equipment embedded in my armor I may well have never known what he did for sure. Azoth had in the blink on an eye, activated a stealth boy, assumed a low crouch, and produced a short Stiletto from the small of his back. The next eye blink showed only the gory scene of a murdered junkie and an unbloodied. His lightning fast attack on the wasteland junkie showed how agile the lone wanderer already was.

If it weren't for my hundreds of years of training in stealth techniques and some stolen Chinese stealth tech, I am sure that at this time he could have ended me with but a twitch. But, thankfully that did not happen and he merely began searching the junkie for things of value. She had said something about caps that made them seem valuable to her so he grabbed the sack of six hundred she had on her. At the time he thought that they were just a curiosity of a junkie in the wasteland and he would find real currency some time soon. Little did he know how much the outside world differed from the vault.

Part 1

I continued to follow my charge in his travels around the wasteland. I was there with him when he tracked down Three Dog at GNR for a little talk about the whereabouts of James. The Lone Wanderer was well known to Three Dog by the time that Azoth arrived at the radio station. Three Dog had heard of how Azoth managed to charm one Mr. Burke into leaving town without any bloodshed. He had heard of how The Lone Wanderer managed to fight off the Talon Company hit squad bare handed. Stories of how Azoth had hauled the bomb out of the center of the town known as Megaton and taken it to a place sufficiently far away and detonated it in accordance with the wishes of the members of the Church of Atom, had reached the station in the middle of D.C.

The Atomites had wished to transcend this plane of existence by means of the cleansing glow of radiation. In order to do this and reach enlightenment, they needed to die in nuclear fire. Azoth obliged them with the explosion of the century. I have to admit I will miss having such a convenient source of radiation around; my wounds heal much slower now, but I digress.

Three Dog had been thoroughly impressed by the deeds of Azoth, and so knew that Azoth would be up for the task of repairing the dish on the Washington monument. This task was a milk run for azoth who had long ago figured out how to move silently and to kill with his newly repaired and suppressed 10mm custom pistol. Azoth had learned to carry two types of 10mm ammo around with him at all times to deal with all situations. His first ammo type that was used specially for silent kills is the sub-sonic variety of 10mm in order to keep the bullet from making noise as it broke the sound barrier. The other was a 10mm magnum that was loaded specially by Azoth himself to provide %150 the normal powder behind every bullet. This extra powder made the bullet travel at speeds high enough to punch through most super mutant armors and still cause damage on the other side.

This task was a milk run, or at least it should have been.

On his way to the museum of technology he ducked into the metro tunnels to escape the harsh punishment of roving super mutants. Here he encountered his first Feral Ghoul, these poor souls had been exposed to enough radiation to make them immortal, but they had also lost their minds in the process. It didn't take Azoth long to discover their madness, they attacked the moment they saw him. Azoth had never been one for hesitation, and this time was no different. He drew his pistol in a single fluid motion, and with the practiced ease of years of marksmanship training in the vault, he dispatched each ghoul with a single shot to the cranium. The resulting Bloody Mess contained the combined bits of skull and brain that had been blasted out with the magnum rounds.

It gave me no discomfort to step over the remains of my fellow immortals; their madness was such a curse that destruction was mercy.

The Lone Wanderer wound his way south to the Mall. When he emerged from the metro station he discovered the Washington monument to his right and the Capitol Building to his left. The ruins around him had a chilling effect on his demeanor, but he remained just as vigilant of his surroundings. He observed his surroundings with an eye for the dangerous and spotted a group of super mutants heading his way. Luckily for him they had not yet spotted him so he ducked behind the metro exit. Judging by the look on his face, he had decided that he would kill the super mutants. What I did not see on his face was that he planned to do it quietly.

Azoth loaded his customized pistol with the subsonic rounds specially made to go with his silent strategy of extermination. He screwed on the suppresser and readied his pip-boy 3000 for combat; V.A.T.S. would be used to identify the soft points in the armor of the mutants. He peeked out to see if the mutants had turned another direction. To his surprise they had all turned to present him with their flank. He quickly sized them up and tally up their number, there were 5 mutants in total in the immediate vicinity, all of them walking in a patrol formation looking for humans to abduct and turn.

Azoth used his position of hard cover to engage the muties in a surprise attack that killed the trailing two patrol members. The other Mutants heard nothing but their own footsteps crunching trash and bones from previous tourists. He quickly adjusted his aim and killed the largest of the patrol, obviously the leader, who carried a minigun. Unfortunately for the lone wanderer, the leader was at the front of the pack and was immediately seen falling to the ground dead. The final two brutes turned upon Azoth, rage showing clearly in their yellow faces. Azoth immediately ducked behind cover and charged his pip-boy for a double kill in V.A.T.S. Time slowed for him as the wrist mounted computer interfaced with his neural circuitry and forced his body to move at speeds that otherwise would be impossible to a human body. His pistol coughed four times, two rounds penetrating the soft eye of each mutant. His aim was deadly and in less than 5 seconds he had two eyeless mutants lying at his feet.

The rest of his trek to the museum of technology was uneventful except for a few rad-roaches that had to be stomped.


End file.
